Introduction

I’ve scoured the internet for the many sources of Tony Abbotts speech and writing, and all the quotes (335 in total) are included verbatim as I found them.  A small number of quotes were found many, many times on different websites: in honour of serendipity, I’ve only referenced the first site on which I found the quote.

If you have any issues with the accuracy of the quote, by all means let me know via comment.  I’ll update my copy.  But you should probably also let the original source know as well.

Tweeting

I’m also tweeting these (many in modified form) with the hashtag #abbottquote

In order to fit them into a tweet, many have been shorted or edited. I’ve tried to use standard forms with these edits, as follows:

ellipsis (“…”): indicating where a word or words have been removed for brevity.  The intent is not to change the overall meaning of the quote.  In many cases I’ve used a ‘short ellipsis’, i.e. “..” for space.

Square brackets: (“[ ]”): that contain words that paraphrase some of the actual words in the quote.  This is usually done for space reasons, but sometimes to add equivalent context (say when a quote comes from a multi-sentence paragraph, and a proper noun from a previous sentence is referred to with a pronoun in the quote.

Disclaimer

I’m not an Abbott or Coalition supporter, but our Prime Minister is clearly an intelligent and dedicated human being.  I’ve made no effort to slant this collection one way or another.  Many of these quotes are not really controversial at all, but they do give insight into the deeper thinking of a man that many believe to only capable of slogans.

As to whether they reflect positively, negatively or neutrally on Tony Abbott, I leave that to a dialog between his words and your brain.

Quotes

“We’ve had intervention in Libya. Seems to have been more successful, but we’re at the beginning of a long story there” — Tony Abbott on 7:30 Report (02/09/2013) –  ABC 7:30 Report Interview Transcript (2/9/2013)

 

“Senior officials [should] live in these towns. If these places are not good enough for officials to live in and to raise their families in, they’re unlikely to be very satisfactory for anyone else” — ‘Battlelines’ P169 (Indigenous Affairs) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“Political parties don’t work when people just announce what they’re doing and expect everyone else to follow. I will not be that kind of leader” — Tony Abbott (2009) –  Daily Telegraph (Quotes Since Becoming Opposition Leader – 1st December 2009)

 

“we’ve got to be very careful dealing in a powder keg like the Middle East that we don’t take action, well-intentioned action which could end up making a bad situation worse” — Tony Abbott on 7:30 Report (02/09/2013) –  ABC 7:30 Report Interview Transcript (2/9/2013)

 

“The problem with politicians getting to know the issues in indigenous townships is that we tend to suffer from what Aboriginal people call the ‘seagull syndrome’ – we fly in, scratch around and fly out.” — Tony Abbott –  Tony Abbott (Brainyquote 1/3)

 

“The argument [behind climate change] is absolute crap. However, the politics of this are tough for us. Eighty per cent of people believe climate change is a real and present danger.” — Quoted in “Town of Beaufort changed Tony Abbott’s view on climate change” in the Australian, (12 December 2009) –  Tony Abbott (WikiQuotes)

 

“Although China has had to become less repressive to accommodate more economic freedom, the long term ability of what’s still a communist government to maintain legitimacy and satisfy aspirations is far from clear” — ‘Battlelines’ P160 (Foreign Affairs) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“Voluntary paid maternity leave: yes; compulsory paid maternity leave: over this Government’s dead body, frankly. It just won’t happen” — 24 Tony Abbott quotes – 5. Maternity Leave, over his Government’s dead body –  Turn Left 2013 – 24 Tony Abbott Quotes

 

“In this speech, he [Howard] nominated ‘self-reliance’, ‘a fair go’, ‘pulling together’ and ‘having a go’ as elements of the ‘Australian Way’” — ‘Battlelines’ P77 (Guiding Liberal Policies) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“I don’t think we can say that the science is settled here” — Tony Abbott (On Climate Change), 14 March 2011  –  Climate Misinformer: Tony Abbott

 

“we’ve had some extensive Western interventions.” — Tony Abbott on 7:30 Report (02/09/2013) –  ABC 7:30 Report Interview Transcript (2/9/2013)

 

“There is much to be said for an emissions trading scheme. It was, after all, the mechanism for emission reduction ultimately chosen by the Howard government.” — Tony Abbott July 27th 2009 tonyabbott.com.au –  Abbottisms Website

 

“Just as Al Gore invented the internet: whatever policy she wants, she invented it.” — Tony Abbott February 15th 2006 (Hansard) –  Abbottisms Website

 

“As leader, I am not frightened of an election, I am not frightened of an election on this issue, I really am not frightened of an election on this issue” — Tony Abbott (2009) –  Daily Telegraph (Quotes Since Becoming Opposition Leader – 1st December 2009)

 

“People frequently live together before making a formal commitment to each other. It reflects the social changes of the past century more than it signifies a collapse of moral standards. Young people reach sexual maturity earlier but leave school much later…it takes time to establish independent households that most newly married people now  expect” — ‘Battlelines’ P176 (Importance of Family) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“Despite its caste system, India has some key advantages – democracy and the rule of law besides the English language and already looks as though it will become an important member of the anglosphere” — ‘Battlelines’ P160 (Foreign Affairs) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“All of the people who are using their BlackBerries or their iPhones, Facebook, all of the people who are sitting in cafes and hotels rooms doing their work, they’re all using wireless technology, and we shouldn’t assume that the only way of the future is high speed cable” — Tony Abbott –  Tony Abbott (Brainyquote 1/3)

 

“The prime job of opposition is to hold the government to account … if we are absolutely confident that what the government is doing is in beyond reasonable doubt in the national interest then sure let’s go along with it. But if you’ve got the doubts we have over this, then we’re obliged to oppose it” — Tony Abbott (2009) –  Daily Telegraph (Quotes Since Becoming Opposition Leader – 1st December 2009)

 

“This emissions trading scheme legislation, which is really an energy taxation scheme, does deserve the most rigorous scrutiny by this parliament … It would be grossly irresponsible of us to just wave this through the parliament” — Tony Abbott (2009) –  Daily Telegraph (Quotes Since Becoming Opposition Leader – 1st December 2009)

 

“On gun laws, workplace-relations change, the development of an academically rigorous national curriculum and protecting the Murray-Darling basin, to name only the most obvious instances of policy tension with the States, John Howard was more interested in solving problems than in constitutional niceties” — ‘Battlelines’ P118 (State–Commonwealth Blame Game) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“I believe that there is a vast moral gulf which separates modern Australia from Nazi Germany. But can we be so sure that, under pressure over time, we will not slide down the same slippery slope. We only have to look at the abortion situation in this country.” — Tony Abbott October 16th 1995 Australian Parliament: Hansard –  Abbottisms Website

 

“No one, however smart, however well educated, however experienced, is the suppository of all wisdom.” — Liberal Party Campaign launch, 12/08/2013 (“Tony Abbott declares ‘no one can be a suppository of all wisdom'”) –  Tony Abbott (WikiQuotes)

 

“Many climate change protagonists are also committed to ending what they see as wasteful consumerism That’s a perfectly legitimate point of view. Still the correlation between what’s presented as scientific consensuses for the need for lower emissions and standard new left prejudice against economic growth is suspiciously neat….For many, reducing emissions is a means to achieving a political objective they could not otherwise gain” — ‘Battlelines’ P171 (Environmentalism) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“Gillard won’t lie down and die and where there’s life, there’s fight” — Tony Abbott 29 May 2009 –  Australian Times (K Rudd and T Abbott Quotes)

 

“Liberal Party has a sunnier view of human nature than the passionately idealistic Labor Party” — ‘Battlelines’ P82 (Fairness) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“My challenge now is to ensure that I’m not the best Opposition Leader never to have become prime minister” — Tony Abbott 8 Sep 2010 –  Australian Times (K Rudd and T Abbott Quotes)

 

“It was the so-called settled science of climate change, that I thought was to be described in language that I wouldn’t use on a family program” — Tony Abbott (On Climate Change), 2 February 2010 –  Climate Misinformer: Tony Abbott

 

“If we’re honest, most of us would accept that a bad boss is a little bit like a bad father or a bad husband … you find that he tends to do more good than harm. He might be a bad boss but at least he’s employing someone while he is in fact a boss.” — Quoted in “Tony Abbott under fire” on abc.net.au, July 22, 2002. –  Tony Abbott (WikiQuotes)

 

“It’s very easy for Australians living in big cities to either romanticise or demonise the situation in Aboriginal places – to kind of look at things through the ‘noble innocents’ prism or through the ‘chronically dysfunctional’ prism, and I suspect that is so often the case” — Tony Abbott –  Tony Abbott (Brainyquote 1/3)

 

“The new [Rudd] system requires business to engage in ‘good faith bargaining’ – a misnomer – with potentially, all unions that have workers at an enterprise. A new industrial regulator-cum-arbiter, Fair Work Australiam, is to make binding rulings in the event parties can’t agree. This is compulsory arbitration by the back door.  It means that decisions vital to the survival of businesses and their employees will be made by officials rather than by people in the workplace” — ‘Battlelines’ P87 (Fair Work Australia) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“The states will gladly take the Commonwealth’s money, but are most unlikely ever to change their bureaucratic structures as long as problems can plausibly be attributed to the Commonwealth’s parsimony rather than to their own addiction to bureaucracy” — ‘Battlelines’ P134 (States to do better) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“The most pervasive economic lesson of the past 30 years is not that market capitalism has failed, but that is actually the only way to succeed in the long run, whatever short term difficulties there may be…” — ‘Battlelines’ P155 (Economic Reform) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“Of course Aboriginal children should be expected to attend school….adults should attend work programs and lose social security benefits if they don’t” — ‘Battlelines’ P169 (Indigenous Affairs) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“…artificially created [carbon] markets could be especially open to manipulation….many now think that a carbon charge scheme directed at the least environmentally efficient producers would be simpler and fairer than an emissions trading scheme” — ‘Battlelines’ P172 (Environmentalism) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“Well, I’m not saying that an emissions tax is ever going to be good policy.” — Tony Abbott –  Tony Abbott (Brainyquote 2/3)

 

“Giving more authority to the national government is not the same as supporting bug government over small. Unlike the states, which typically provide services through giant state-run organizations…the Commonwealth usually provides services through non-government bodies….what might be described a s ‘conservative centralism’ is likely to reduce total size of government” — ‘Battlelines’ P127-8 (COAG) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“This is a government which takes national security seriously and that’s not just national security against terrorism, it is national security against all forms of threat, including biological threat” — Tony Abbott –  Tony Abbott (ThinkExist)

 

“Australians are entitled to take at least a measure of pride in our country’s achievements” — ‘Battlelines’ P152 (Australia’s Future Direction) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“If you’d asked me for advice I would have said to have – adopt a sort of “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy about all of these things…” — Tony Abbott, on homosexuality –  16 Quotes From Tony Abbott to Remind You Why He Shouldn’t Be Prime Minister

 

“The job of the opposition is to be an alternative not an echo; to provide a choice not a copy” — Tony Abbott (2009) –  Daily Telegraph (Quotes Since Becoming Opposition Leader – 1st December 2009)

 

“WorkChoices is dead, it’s buried, it’s cremated.” — Quoted in ABC News “WorkChoices haunt Abbott” on abc.net.au, July 19, 2010. –  Tony Abbott (WikiQuotes)

 

““The adage ‘If its not necessary to change, it necessary not to change.’ perhaps best captures this spirit” — ‘Battlelines’ P56 (Conservativism) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“Conservatism prefers facts to theory, practical demonstration to metaphysical abstraction; what works to what’s in the mind’s eye…Conservatives are not optimists or pessimists but realists” — ‘Battlelines’ P72 (Conservativism) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“If I ever proposed new spending measures or had a good word for the unions, …Peter Costello would jocularly inquire whether I was “channeling Santa [BA Santamaria] again” — ‘Battlelines’ P148-9 (Conservativism) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“Australia has states because it was the price of becoming a nation, not because the federation fathers thought an intermediate level of government was necessary to avoid tyranny or that some services were inherently better delivered by states” — ‘Battlelines’ P113 (State–Commonwealth Blame Game) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“If marriage is making the life of a spouse or a child wretched, it may best be ended. Still, many marriages are entered into with an unrealistic expectation of future bliss” — ‘Battlelines’  P176 (Importance of Family) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“Because a strong economy requires highly educated people in good health, better schools and hospitals, and better systems for running them are an important component of economic reform. Because successful business requires good infrastructure, better roads and telecommunications [and competitive markets]… are also part of economic reform” — ‘Battlelines’ P83 (Economic Reform) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“Even if global warming is as bad as the doomsayers claim, it’s better to respond correctly than to respond tomorrow. Man-made CO2 emission have been happening for centuries and I daresay the planet could cope if we respond intelligently in 2012 rather than foolishly in 2010.” — Tony Abbott (On Climate Change), 19 December 2008 –  Climate Misinformer: Tony Abbott

 

“The problem with the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) is that its processes have no authority of their own and its decisions are not binding.  European institutions have more authority over Britain  and France than COAG has over NSW and Victoria” — ‘Battlelines’ P126 (COAG) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“The thesis that carbon dioxide is uniquely responsible for global warming has run up against a serious problem, and that is the fact that the climate has if anything been cooling slightly over the last decade, while there have been continued massive increases in carbon dioxide emissions” — Tony Abbott (On Climate Change), 27 July 2009 –  Climate Misinformer: Tony Abbott

 

“I have close family members as well as lots of close friends who are gay. Many of them strongly support gay marriage” — Tony Abbott –  Tony Abbott (Brainyquote 2/3)

 

“It’s quite likely that increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has had some effect on the climate, but debate rages amongst scientists over its extent and relative impact given all other factors at work. It sounds like common sense to minimize human impact on the environment and to reduce human contribution to increased atmospheric-gas concentrations. It doesn’t make sense, though, to impose certain and substantial costs on the economy now in order to avoid unknown and perhaps even benign changes in the future” — ‘Battlelines’ P170-1 (Environmentalism) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“For too long, policymakers have ranked motorists just above heavy drinkers or smokers as social pariahs….They’re citizens going to work, doing the shopping, taking the kids to school…” — ‘Battlelines’ P174 (Improving Transport System) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“The phrase WorkChoices is dead. No one will ever mention it again. But we do need to have a free and flexible economy” — Tony Abbott (2009) –  Daily Telegraph (Quotes Since Becoming Opposition Leader – 1st December 2009)

 

“Certainly, my uni days involved some statements that I wouldn’t make today” — Tony Abbott –  Tony Abbott (Brainyquote 2/3)

 

“We do not want educated women, at the higher degree level, to deny them a career. If we want women of that calibre to have families – and we should – well we’ve got to give them a fair dinkum chance to do so” — Tony Abbott 7 May 2013 –  Australian Times (K Rudd and T Abbott Quotes)

 

“I think my wife and my kids are incredibly good to allow me to stay in public life given that they have to cop a whole lot of collateral attention that, being human, they’d rather not get” — Tony Abbott –  Tony Abbott (Brainyquote 2/3)

 

“Why isn’t the fact that 100,000 women choose to end their pregnancies regarded as a national tragedy approaching the scale, say, of Aboriginal life expectancy being 20 years less than that of the general community?” — Tony Abbott March 17th 2004 tonyabbott.com.au –  Abbottisms Website

 

“Former general Jim Molan observed that Australia hasn’t really pulled its weight in either Iraq or Afghanistan, despite the credit we’ve received in Washington and London. Its wrong to expect America to be the world’s policeman with only a token assistance from its allies. If Australia is to matter in the wider world, Australians should expect more, not less, future involvement in international security issues” — ‘Battlelines’ P159 (Foreign Affairs) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“Mates help each other; they do not tax each other.” — Tony Abbott February 23rd 2011 Australian Parliament: Hansard –  Abbottisms Website

 

“I had described middle income families with children as Australia’s new poor. And called for (non-means tested family wage, perhaps of $100 a week to be paid to the principal carer of dependent children A family wage, I said: is quite different to welfare. It is a recognition of responsibilities, not need…. It would take just one public servant, just one, and a computer to administer” — ‘Battlelines’ P93 (Taxation Reform) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“Jesus knew that there was a place for everything and it’s not necessarily everyone’s place to come to Australia.” — Panel discussion, “Tony Abbott on Q and A” on abc.net.au, April 5, 2010. –  Tony Abbott (WikiQuotes)

 

“Public schools could benefit from being less subject to large and unwieldy bureaucracy.  Most teachers are hard working and highly committed and there are many excellent public schools.  Kevin Donnelly said, “instead of having a robust education system committed to excellence and the highest standards of learning, we are faced with an inflexible school system suffering from a provider capture, protected from competition, steeped in mediocrity and the belief that education should be used for social engineering and the promotion of political correctness” — ‘Battlelines’ P144 (Improving Schools) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“For small business people, less paperwork means higher profits, boosted sales and more time with the family” — Tony Abbott –  Tony Abbott (Brainyquote 1/3)

 

“We just can’t stop people from being homeless if that’s their choice.” — Tony Abbott February 11th 2010 Sydney Morning Herald –  Abbottisms Website

 

“The impact of the Hanson party had been to take votes away from the only conservatives who were ever likely to be in power” — ‘Battlelines’ P50 (One Nation) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“The Little Children are Sacred report was not the first to detail horrific violence in Aboriginal families.  It was though, the first report that dealt just with a territory. It was the first report confined to places where Canberra could, if necessary, ‘pull rank’ and call the shots” — ‘Battlelines’ P123 (State–Commonwealth Blame Game) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“Meaningful reform is unlikely until one level of government can call the shots.  As long as reform involves negotiations with the states, reform proposals will nearly always mean that the Commonwealth pays for changes that the states then have to deliver – a recipe for buck passing and blame shifting – or that an unwieldy state bureaucracy is replaced by an equally unwieldy and possibly even less accountable joint Commonwealth-state bureaucracy” — ‘Battlelines’ P133 (States to do better) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“Direct measures that improve the efficiency of cars, encourage the use of renewable energy, such as domestic solar power, promote recycling with urban rainwater tank, create carbon sinks on grazing land…they don’t do damage to export industries…” — ‘Battlelines’ P172 (Environmentalism) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“I think that political marriages are subject to more strain than most precisely because of the nature of politics” — Tony Abbott –  Tony Abbott (Brainyquote 2/3)

 

“The climate has changed over the eons and we know from history, at the time of Julius Caesar and Jesus of Nazareth the climate was considerably warmer than it is now. […] Climate change happens all the time and it is not man that drives those climate changes back in history. It is an open question how much the climate changes today and what role man plays” — Tony Abbott (On Climate Change), 8 May 2010 –  Climate Misinformer: Tony Abbott

 

“Abortion is the easy way out. It’s hardly surprising that people should choose the most convenient exit from awkward situations.” — Quoted in “Rate of abortion high-lights our moral failings” on www.tonyabbott.com.au, 17 March 2004. [specific citation needed] –  Tony Abbott (WikiQuotes)

 

“Perhaps the biggest problem is that public education is undervalued.  Classroom teachers’ salaries in NSW start at about $53,000 and finish on $79,000 per year.  High salaries for new graduates but low for outstanding teachers who have been inspiring their students for decades.  ‘Teacher quality’ salary distinctions are made on time served and additional qualifications obtained” — ‘Battlelines’ P145 (Improving Schools) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“There are some wounds that need to be healed. I have said to my colleagues that I will do my best to be a consultative and collegial leader” — Tony Abbott (2009) –  Daily Telegraph (Quotes Since Becoming Opposition Leader – 1st December 2009)

 

“When you are challenging the young, they can come back at you with language of tremendous power and they are no respecters of sacred cows, you know, the young. There’s nothing politically correct about the average young Australian when it comes to use of language.” — Quoted in News.com.au, “Abbott OK being a ‘lame, gay, churchy loser'” in news.com.au from all angles, (28 August 2009) –  Tony Abbott (WikiQuotes)

 

“We have to get this straight: euthanasia is not about the right to die; it is about the right to kill.” — Tony Abbott October 16th 1995 (Hansard) –  Abbottisms Website

 

“The problem with politicians getting to know the issues in indigenous townships is that we tend to suffer from what Aboriginal people call the ‘seagull syndrome’ – we fly in, scratch around and fly out” — Tony Abbott –  Tony Abbott Quotes

 

“Victory is within our ready grasp…We are in reach of a famous victory” — Abbott’s ‘famous victory’ remark … was it gospel or not? in The Age, (23 June 2010) –  Tony Abbott (WikiQuotes)

 

“I think anything which improves services is in principle a good thing.” — Tony Abbott –  Tony Abbott (Brainyquote 1/3)

 

“As Michael Costa said recently: ‘… Fair Work Australia can not be allowed to replace enterprise management in developing business strategy, This would be an unmitigated economic disaster’” — ‘Battlelines’ P88 (Fair Work Australia) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“It’s the last thing I would have expected a week ago. My intention was to change the position on these bills, no more than that. Unfortunately, it became clear, eventually, that in order to change the position on these bills we had to have a leadership change” — Tony Abbott (2009) –  Daily Telegraph (Quotes Since Becoming Opposition Leader – 1st December 2009)

 

“We do want to reduce our emissions and those targets stand. We will have a strong and effective climate change policy, it just won’t be this ETS” — Tony Abbott (2009) –  Daily Telegraph (Quotes Since Becoming Opposition Leader – 1st December 2009)

 

“Australia will have one of the world’s strongest economies” — ‘Battlelines’ P154 (Come 2020, I’m confident that) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“Rudd government is slowly turning Work for the Dole into a training program. The idea that ‘the world owes people a living’ is strong inside the Labor Party. .. The Labor Party is also eroding the principle of mutual obligation” — ‘Battlelines’ P89 (Welfare Reform) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“We’ve had intervention in Afghanistan. Again, I supported it. A lot of people would question its wisdom and its ultimate outcomes.” — Tony Abbott on 7:30 Report (02/09/2013) –  ABC 7:30 Report Interview Transcript (2/9/2013)

 

“You cannot win an election without a fight” — Tony Abbott –  Tony Abbott (Brainyquote 1/3)

 

“You try turning up in America without documents, without a visa, without a passport; you’ll be treated as very, very much illegal” — Tony Abbott –  Tony Abbott (Brainyquote 1/3)

 

“I think the climate change science is far from settled” — Tony Abbott (On Climate Change), 29 July 2009 –  Climate Misinformer: Tony Abbott

 

“The climate change argument is absolute crap…” — Tony Abbott (On Climate Change), 1 July 2009 –  Climate Misinformer: Tony Abbott

 

“The conservative side of politics will not flourish if we do not have a strong and effective coalition” — Tony Abbott (2009) –  Daily Telegraph (Quotes Since Becoming Opposition Leader – 1st December 2009)

 

“I accept that I, at times, have stuffed up. I also believe that when you become leader you make a new start” — Tony Abbott (2009) –  Daily Telegraph (Quotes Since Becoming Opposition Leader – 1st December 2009)

 

“I think that marriage is, dare I say it, between a man and a woman, hopefully for life and there are all sorts of other relationships which should be acknowledged and recognised, but I don’t know that they can be recognised as marriage” — Tony Abbott –  Tony Abbott (Brainyquote 1/3)

 

“While many scientists, perhaps even a strong numerical majority, think that carbon dioxide is the principal factor in variations in global climate, others question the significance of the role of a naturally occurring trace gas and attribute climate change mainly to variations in solar activity” — Tony Abbott (On Climate Change), 27 July 2007 –  Climate Misinformer: Tony Abbott

 

“In fact, monarchy in Australia is quite different from the monarchy in Britain. Here it also means [besides the Queen] governors-general and state governors. These are now always Australians who have distinguished themselves in some significant way…It gives the Australian crown a decidedly local flavour. (Republic)” —  –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“We have a lot of experienced players back, … Our attitude is that we want to go out and prove last year was a fluke. We are out to prove we are a lot better than 1-9.” — Tony Abbott –  Tony Abbott (ThinkExist)

 

“If American leadership is bad, its absence would be worse.  The alternative to American leadership would not turn out to be more enlightened leadership, but no leadership at all” — ‘Battlelines’ P156 (Foreign Affairs) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“Aboriginal people’s high incidence of chronic disease, substance abuse and domestic violence are a function of unemployment, lack of education and very isolated living, not official neglect” — ‘Battlelines’ P166 (Indigenous Affairs) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“My commitment to the forgotten families of Australia is to ease your cost of living pressure” — Tony Abbott –  Tony Abbott (Brainyquote 2/3)

 

“…most Australians thought it was self-evidently necessary to deal with such serious and entrenched problems.   Indeed with 20/20 hindsight, many thought that the intervention measures should have been taken years earlier and extended to all remote Aboriginal settlements, not just in the Territory” — ‘Battlelines’ P123 (State–Commonwealth Blame Game) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“The problem is that most Western nations have privatised the next generation. Having children is tends to be regarded as a personal choice rather than a social good. Perhaps for the first time in human history, large families are not seen as a sign of faith in the future or even as a provision against its perils but as a kind of trespass on the environment. …As Malcolm Turnbull declared in 2003… ‘ there is no greater threat to Western society than the decline in fertility…’ A society which cannot reproduce itself has surely embraced a cultural death wish’” — ‘Battlelines’ P97 (Families) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“Oakshott notes that conservatism is at odds with the modern mindset which, he says, ‘is in love with change’.  ..’the fascination with what is new is felt more keenly than the comfort of what is familiar… There is a positive prejudice in favour of the yet untried… ‘” — ‘Battlelines’ P67 (Conservativism) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“Since the 1940s, in response to problems or opportunities that the states had neglected, the Commonwealth has become successively involved in funding pharmaceutical drugs, universities. Nursing homes, schools. Medical services, hospitals, public housing, disability services and infrastructure. The commonwealth is now expected to keep funding these services, even though it often has little or no say over how they’re actually run.  Constant bickering is the inevitable consequence…” — ‘Battlelines’ P115 (State–Commonwealth Blame Game) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“It’s odd that the Iraq war should still trumpeted as a monumental moral failure just when the country looks to be recovering” — ‘Battlelines’ P157 (Foreign Affairs) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“Because it funds specific services or individual patients, the Commonwealth’s approach to health is fundamentally different from that of the states. Through Medicare, the Commonwealth funds patients to buy medical services or directly funds bulk-billing doctors. Through PBS…funds pharmacies…Through aged care funding …supports independent institutions to deliver services that individuals or families choose to use” — ‘Battlelines’ P139 (Health Reform) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“To voters, health and education outrank unemployment, the environment, national security, tax, workplace relations and immigration (as important as they are).  Voters seem to consider health and education more important than economic management, despite good economic management being a precondition for better hospitals and schools.  This is why the Commonwealth has become increasingly involved in these areas” — ‘Battlelines’ P132 (States to do better) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“[Australia] will be more cosmopolitan but less multicultural – because there will be more stress on unity” — ‘Battlelines’ P154 (Come 2020, I’m confident that) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“The intervention was a dramatic illustration of the Commonwealth’s capacity to make change for the better where it’s the sovereign level of Government.  What could be done in the Territory contrasts with what couldn’t be done in the states. When a state government sits on its hands in an area of its constitutional responsibility (as the NT government had hitherto done with the Little Children are Sacred report), [currently] the national government can try to buy a solution but it can’t actually make one happen” — ‘Battlelines’ P123 (State–Commonwealth Blame Game) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“I do enjoy exercise, not because I am an exercise junkie but because it’s terrific stress release” — Tony Abbott –  Tony Abbott (Brainyquote 2/3)

 

“Do we want an Australia celebrated for its way of life or an Australia that is celebrated for its way of death?” — Tony Abbott October 16th 1995 (Hansard) –  Abbottisms Website

 

“John Howard … demonstrated that conservatives could be vigorous reformers themselves rather than mere obstacles to obstruct the reforms of others” — ‘Battlelines’ P73 (Conservativism) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“I mean there are many, many people in all sorts of different countries who don’t have a great life, who are subject to injustice. Are we obliged to take all of them who come here? I think the answer is ‘Not necessarily.'” — Tony Abbott –  Tony Abbott (Brainyquote 1/3)

 

“…Liberal Party is concerned about the rights, responsibilities, opportunities and place in society of each person. We want each person to be empowered, as far as reasonably possible, to live the life he or she thinks best.” — ‘Battlelines’ pXII (Guiding Liberal Policies) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“While I think men and women are equal, they are also different and I think it’s inevitable and I don’t think it’s a bad thing at all that we always have, say, more women doing things like physiotherapy and an enormous number of women simply doing housework” — Quoted in “Rudd hands PM a crucial lifeline” by : Laurie Oakes in the Herald Sun, (06 August 2010) –  Tony Abbott (WikiQuotes)

 

“Jesus didn’t say yes to everyone. I mean Jesus knew that there was a place for everything and it is not necessarily everyone’s place to come to Australia.” — Tony Abbott, Q and A, 5 April 2010. –  Tony Abbott’s Quotes 2013

 

“I also think that if you want to put a price on carbon, why not just do it with a simple tax? Why not ask motorists to pay more, why not ask electricity consumers to pay more and then at the end of the year you can take your invoices to the tax office and get a rebate of the carbon tax you’ve paid” — Tony Abbott, On the Carbon Tax and Climate Change –  16 Quotes From Tony Abbott to Remind You Why He Shouldn’t Be Prime Minister

 

“For a long time, Australians collectively failed to extend to Aboriginal people the kind of sympathetic understanding that was readily extended to, say, the Irish and their predicament…. Of itself, though, the Rudd Government apology was a feel good gesture” — ‘Battlelines’ P165-6 (Indigenous Affairs) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“Work Choices was a political mistake, but may not have been an economic one. The legislation was highly complex, for all the government’s deregulatory intent. Its chief fault, though, was to abolish the ‘no disadvantage rule’ that had previously applied to Australian Workplace Agreements. As John Stone pointed out, during the 18-month period it was fully operational ‘499,000 jobs were added, of which 91 per cent were full time (compared to only 51 per cent during the previous decade…” — ‘Battlelines’ p87 (Work Choices) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“A proposal to give the best teachers much higher salaries could transform the education debate.  An extra $1 billion a year could add $50,000 a year more to the pay packets of Australia’s 20,000 best teachers” — ‘Battlelines’ P149 (Improving Schools) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“A Bill for an Act to alter the Constitution to enable a more effective exercise of Commonwealth power in areas of responsibility shared with the States” — ‘Battlelines’ P188 (State–Commonwealth Blame Game) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“Putting dentistry on Medicare to allow substantial bulk billing would be very expensive; health officials estimated the cost at up to $4 billion a year in 2007.  Unfunded new spending of this magnitude could not be contemplated until the budget returns to surplus.  It would be the best means of ensuring that people don’t miss out on essential dental treatment and is a logical development to the Medicare system” — ‘Battlelines’ P144 (Better Dental Health) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“Once people come to Australia, they join the team” — Tony Abbott –  Tony Abbott (Brainyquote 2/3)

 

“I think leadership is knowing what you want to achieve and then purposefully and sensibly taking steps to achieve it, remembering always that you have got to bring people with you if you are seeking to be a successful political leader” — Tony Abbott –  Tony Abbott (Brainyquote 1/3)

 

“We’re not looking about austerity, Leigh; we’re talking about sensible, prudent respect for taxpayers’ dollars” — Tony Abbott on 7:30 Report (02/09/2013) –  ABC 7:30 Report Interview Transcript (2/9/2013)

 

“That’s bullshit. You’re being deliberately unpleasant. I suppose you can’t help yourself, can you?” — Tony Abbott, on Nicola Roxon –  16 Quotes From Tony Abbott to Remind You Why He Shouldn’t Be Prime Minister

 

“Middle income families with children are Australia’s new poor” — ‘Battlelines’ P93 (Middle Class Welfare) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“…nor the Rudd Government’s union-centred industrial legislation will arrest the long term decline in union membership. Well educated, capable people won’t subcontract to union officials the management of their economic future, especially if that means more workplace confrontation” — ‘Battlelines’ P154 (Economic Reform) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“What’s missing is a universal system of family assistance to support ‘home cantered’  and ‘adaptive’ women who have more children and also a comprehensive maternity leave system to support ‘work centred’ mothers who want to have more children” — ‘Battlelines’ P97 (Families) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“If man-made CO2 was quite the villain that many of these people say it is, why hasn’t there just been a steady increase starting in 1750, and moving in a linear way up the graph?” — Tony Abbott (On Climate Change), 19 November 2009 –  Climate Misinformer: Tony Abbott

 

“I think it would be folly to expect that women will ever dominate or even approach equal representation in a large number of areas simply because their aptitudes, abilities and interests are different for physiological reasons.” — SRC (Students Representative Council) student paper, Sydney University, 1979. –  Tony Abbott (WikiQuotes)

 

“The result of a republic with an elected president would be another politician in an key job” — ‘Battlelines’ P163 (Republic) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“A tax cut to compensate for a tax increase is not a cut – it’s a con” — Tony Abbott –  Tony Abbott (Brainyquote 1/3)

 

“I don’t say that evolution is a complete and entirely satisfactory scientific explanation of the origin of man. Still, I think it’s more plausible than treating the Adam and Eve story as literal truth (if that’s what creationists say)” — 24 Tony Abbott quotes – 1. Evolution or Creationism –  Turn Left 2013 – 24 Tony Abbott Quotes

 

“Whenever enough voters think that the state governments are neglecting an important issue, the Commonwealth ends up becoming involved….Commonwealth spending on health and education now approach $90 billion per annum, or about a quarter of it’s total spending. Its all in areas that were once the wholly preserve of the states.  Most of it is not directly authorised by the constitution, other than via specific purpose grands under section 96” — ‘Battlelines’ P133 (States to do better) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“I think that people should come to Australia through the front door, not through the back door. If people want a migration outcome, they should go through the migration channels” — Tony Abbott –  Tony Abbott (Brainyquote 1/3)

 

“Better public schools are likely to emerge where local teachers and parents have more say over how their schools are run.  Solutions involve trusting people more and relying on officials less” — ‘Battlelines’ P145 (Improving Schools) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“What I would like to see is sufficiently good education and health services being delivered to Aboriginal people so that they are prepared and ready to leave and join the economic mainstream if that’s their choice.” — Tony Abbott –  Tony Abbott (Brainyquote 1/3)

 

“The truth is I try to take people as I find them” — Tony Abbott –  Tony Abbott (Brainyquote 2/3)

 

“I want to reduce emissions […] but I think we’ve also got to accept that carbon dioxide is an essential trace gas as well” — Tony Abbott (On Climate Change), 2 February 2010 –  Climate Misinformer: Tony Abbott

 

“The scientists associated with the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have concluded that man-made carbon dioxide emissions are probably responsible for climate change which, they think, is likely to result in up to one metre rises in sea levels over the next century, up to six degrees increases in temperatures and more extreme weather. A difficulty for this thesis is that man-made carbon dioxide emissions have been increasing substantially for at least a hundred years but significant global warming only seems to have occurred in the last quarter of the last century” — Tony Abbott (On Climate Change), 27 July 2007 –  Climate Misinformer: Tony Abbott

 

“Australia’s intervention to secure the independence of East Timor had many of the same characteristics [of being a policeman]. There was nothing in it for Australia…. It would have been easier to drive a hard bargain with Indonesia than with a more obviously needy fledgling state over oil and gas reserves in the Timor Sea” — ‘Battlelines’ p158 (Foreign Affairs) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“If I was in a refugee camp somewhere on the Pakistani border, of course I’d want to come to Australia” — Tony Abbott –  Tony Abbott (Brainyquote 1/3)

 

“I do regard the selection of a new frontbench as an opportunity to indicate this party is a broad church, it always will be a broad church” — Tony Abbott (2009) –  Daily Telegraph (Quotes Since Becoming Opposition Leader – 1st December 2009)

 

“In the 1980s, the Liberal Party opposed Medicare because it thought it meant ‘socialised medicine’.  In practice, private medical practice has flourished because it is a system for paying doctors’ bills, not employing them.  Medicare has kept medical treatment affordable, but it hasn’t turned doctors into public servants as it was then feared.  Because there is no guarantee of bulk billing, there are still significant price signals in the system….It took some time for the Liberal Party to appreciate the marriage of affordability and choice – to realise that it was almost the embodiment of Liberal values – but late converts can be the truest believers” — ‘Battlelines’ P140 (Medicare) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“There were mistakes too…Work Choices was a catastrophic political blunder…Even though Work Choices coincided with the fastest jobs growth in Australia’s history … an impression was created that the government no longer cared about the vulnerable workers” — ‘Battlelines’ P25/26 (Work Choices) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“Love thy neighbour as you love yourself. That second commandment is rightly the whole basis of human ethics.”” — ‘Battlelines’ P10 (Religion) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“The absence of tribalism is one of the key characteristics of English-speaking cultures….It’s a solidarity based on ideas and even mutually shared differences of opinion, rather than race, religion or economic self-interest” — ‘Battlelines’ P159 (Foreign Affairs) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“…with Work Choices, policy seemed to have become a solution in search of a problem” — ‘Battlelines’ P75 (Work Choices) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“This is an illustration of a new sectarianism where somebody is considered incapable of making an objective decision because they hold ethical, philosophical or religious views” — Tony Abbott –  Tony Abbott (ThinkExist)

 

“The Commonwealth and states first agreed to support a national school curriculum in 1986 and established a national curriculum corporation in 1990.   In 2007, a report found that only physics and chemistry had a high degree of national consistency.  If the National Curriculum Board can meet its latest timeline, it will have taken 25 years to complete” — ‘Battlelines’ P121 (State–Commonwealth Blame Game) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“[Australia] will still be a ‘crowned republic'” — ‘Battlelines’ P154 (Come 2020, I’m confident that) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“In an international version of the tall poppy syndrome, right around the world, people are inclined to revel in the problems facing America. Some left-wing commentators have almost cheered the Taliban and al Qaeda because the cusses of its enemies will, they think, ‘teach America a lesson’” — ‘Battlelines’ P156 (Foreign Affairs) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“We can’t conclusively say whether man-made carbon dioxide emissions are contributing to climate change” — Tony Abbott, Quoted in in the speech A Realist’s Approach to Climate Change (27 July 2009) –  Tony Abbott Quotes

 

“We’ve got a civil war going on in that benighted country between two pretty unsavoury sides. It’s not goodies versus baddies – it’s baddies versus baddies.” — Tony Abbott on Insiders (31/8/13) –  ABC 7:30 Report Interview Transcript (2/9/2013)

 

“Its important to ensure that the native title land can serve as an economic asset as well as a spiritual one….individual rather than collective title…essential that rents are realistic and payment is enforced so that moving to seek employment can start to make more economic sense” — ‘Battlelines’ P168 (Indigenous Affairs) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“Faith is important to me. It’s important to millions of Australians. It helps to shape who I am. It helps to shape my values. But it must never, never dictate my politics” — Tony Abbott –  Tony Abbott (Brainyquote 2/3)

 

“We will have some disagreements in this party, that’s not a bad thing … but the frontbench will represent all shades of opinion inside the Liberal Party” — Tony Abbott (2009) –  Daily Telegraph (Quotes Since Becoming Opposition Leader – 1st December 2009)

 

“The republican’s fundamental problem, though, is that change undramatic enough to succeed is too dull to bother with” — ‘Battlelines’ P164 (Republic) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“I think there does need to be give and take on both sides, and this idea that sex is kind of a woman’s right to absolutely withhold, just as the idea that sex is a man’s right to demand I think they are both they both need to be moderated, so to speak” — Abbott on q&a in 2009 –  Australian Times (K Rudd and T Abbott Quotes)

 

“It’s a little rich girl who is basically whoring herself to the Liberals.” — Tony Abbott –  Tony Abbott (ThinkExist)

 

“I probably should, I suppose, apologise now for all my errors of the past, and make a clean breast of them, if you like, and ask the public to judge me from this point” — Tony Abbott (2009) –  Daily Telegraph (Quotes Since Becoming Opposition Leader – 1st December 2009)

 

“…in this country the Liberal Party is the political custodian of both the liberal and conservative traditions” — ‘Battlelines’ P59 (Conservativism) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

““”The argument is absolute crap. However, the politics of this are tough for us. Eighty per cent of people believe climate change is a real and present danger”” — Tony Abbott, Quoted in Town of Beaufort changed Tony Abbott’s view on climate changet in the Australian (12 December 2009)

Read more at http://izquotes.com/quote/205133 –  Tony Abbott Quotes

”

“Its time for battlelines to be drawn. The Liberal Party certainly has to maintain its credibility as the best party to manage the economy, but also has to be clear about the society it wants. A society where politicians can less easily make excuses for railing to address problems; where more responsive health and education services are available to everyone, where government is in sympathy with the individual and families trying to get ahead; and where the values and the institutions that have stood the test of time are respected should always be the goal to which our party is committed” — ‘Battlelines’ P182 (Liberal Party direction) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“I understand that government should live within its means, value the money it holds in trust from you the taxpayer, avoid waste and, above all else, observe the first maxim of good government: namely, do no avoidable harm” — Tony Abbott –  Tony Abbott (Brainyquote 1/3)

 

“Despite greater ethnic and cultural diversity, longer working hours, ‘blended’ families, and a narrower consensus about values, Australia’s social fabric remains strong.  Australians try hard to be fair, especially to people they fear that they might be prejudiced against” — ‘Battlelines’ P152 (Australia’s Future Direction) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“Over time, means testing family benefits has significantly worsened the financial position of the middle-income families, with far reaching social and economic consequences” — ‘Battlelines’ P95 (Middle Class Welfare) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“Rudd government’s proposed parental leave scheme…its not long enough to allow women fully to breast feed their babies …minimum wage it’s inadequate for most families that depend on a mother’s income” — ‘Battlelines’ P102 (Families) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“Through aged care funding, the Commonwealth supports independent institutions to deliver services that individuals or their families choose to use.  By contrast, except for a handful of privately owned public hospitals (e.g. St Vincents in Sydney and Melbourne) state health departments directly provide public hospital services (Aged Care funding)” —  –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“Climate change is a relatively new political issue, but it’s been happening since the earth’s beginning. The extinction of the dinosaurs is thought to have been associated with climate change. [unverified]” — Tony Abbott (On Climate Change), 9 March 2011 –  Climate Misinformer: Tony Abbott

 

“I have even been accused from time to time of flirting with the deputy prime minister – that must cease now, of course” — Tony Abbott (2009) –  Daily Telegraph (Quotes Since Becoming Opposition Leader – 1st December 2009)

 

“The role of CO2 is not nearly as clear as the climate catastrophists would suggest.” — Tony Abbott, On the Carbon Tax and Climate Change –  16 Quotes From Tony Abbott to Remind You Why He Shouldn’t Be Prime Minister

 

“The issue is not whether climate change happens (after all, grapes grew in Britain in Roman times; crops grew in Greenland in the middle ages; and the River Thames froze in winter during the 1600s) but how much of it is man-made and what can realistically be done to tackle it” — Tony Abbott (On Climate Change), 27 July 2009 –  Climate Misinformer: Tony Abbott

 

“There are no factions in the Liberal Party” — Tony Abbott –  Tony Abbott (Brainyquote 2/3)

 

“Over the past 20 years, public-school parents and citizens groups have become increasingly sophisticated, mostly under the pressure of fund raising for facilities that would once have been provided via state governments.  Parents are precisely the people who should be involved in choosing the school’s principal and its teachers. These parents should be more involved in making decisions about their childrens’ education.  Not to involve them because ‘officials know best’ is a form of snobbery that has long lost any plausible justification” — ‘Battlelines’ P146 (Improving Schools) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“Malcom Turnbull has said that re-vegetation, more energy efficient buildings, and further research into geothermal and tidal power could lead to greater carbon dioxide reduction than the proposed ETS” — ‘Battlelines’ P172 (Environmentalism) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“To move past fear is a cliche” — Tony Abbott –  Tony Abbott (Brainyquote 2/3)

 

“Subsequently I helped a disgruntled former One Nation candidate to take legal action to recover $500,000 in public funding improperly given to the private company masquerading as a political party” — ‘Battlelines’ P51 (One Nation) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“It could be simpler and fairer for the revenue forgone in superannuation concessions to be provided as a pension instead” — ‘Battlelines’ P108 (Retirement Age) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“The Howard Government sought to empower local schools and their communities by paying substantial infrastructure grants directly to them on their application.  These Investing in Our Schools grants typically paid for library extensions, school halls and playground refurbishments. The next Coalition Government could build on this precedent by making additional Commonwealth assistance to public schools dependent upon the establishment of school councils with the right to appoint the principal and to set priorities for the school budget” — ‘Battlelines’ P147 (Improving Schools) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“Sea levels will be much the same, desert boundaries will not have changed much and technology rather than economic self–denial will be starting to cut down atmospheric pollution” — ‘Battlelines’ P154 (Come 2020, I’m confident that) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“I don’t think we should be getting ideas above our station” — Tony Abbott on 7:30 Report (02/09/2013) –  ABC 7:30 Report Interview Transcript (2/9/2013)

 

“I feel a little uncomfortable at being asked the sorts of questions that other Catholics in public life tend not to be asked” — Tony Abbott –  Tony Abbott (Brainyquote 2/3)

 

“These so-called nasty big polluters are the people that keep the lights on. I mean, let’s not forget how essential these people are to the business of daily life.” — Tony Abbott (On Climate Change), 2 February 2010 –  Climate Misinformer: Tony Abbott

 

“..I wasn’t ‘naturally devout’, at least in the way necessary to sustain the life of a priest. Not consoled by heartfelt prayer, I couldn’t imagine being celibate for the rest of my life.” — ‘Battlelines’ P17 (Religion) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“I don’t think we should be getting above ourselves here. We are a significant middle power, but no more. Our capacity for major military involvement in the Middle East is quite limited.” — Tony Abbott on 7:30 Report (02/09/2013) –  ABC 7:30 Report Interview Transcript (2/9/2013)

 

“I want to see an end to sovereign risk questions over Australia” — Tony Abbott –  Tony Abbott (Brainyquote 2/3)

 

“I do enjoy exercise, not because I am an exercise junkie but because it’s terrific stress release.” — Tony Abbott –  Tony Abbott (Brainyquote 2/3)

 

“I am in favour of the notion of Australia as an immigrant society” — Tony Abbott –  Tony Abbott (Brainyquote 2/3)

 

“If we boost productivity, we can improve economic growth” — Tony Abbott –  Tony Abbott (Brainyquote 1/3)

 

“these centres taught some couples the skills necessary to stay together….society should not be indifferent to the fate of marriages. Some American states have created a new category of marriage. As well as a marriage that can be ended after a brief separation, thse states now allow couples who chose to do so, to enter into a marriage that’s harder to end. It’s often called a ‘covenant’ marriage…The last thing that anyone should want is to chain people together who are bringing the worst in each other. On the other hand, if the law is to be the moral teacher that the advocates of ‘better-behaviour’ legislation think it should be, why not establish another type of marriage” — ‘Battlelines’ P177 (Importance of Family) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“I always intended to make dentistry more affordable under Medicare to all people with dental problems, perhaps on referral from a GP.  It had struck me as odd that Medicare should subsidise health treatment for all parts of the body except the mouth” — ‘Battlelines’ P143 (Better Dental Health) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“The next successful Liberal prime minister will no more be a clone of John Howard than John Howard was himself a clone of Bob Menzies or Malcolm Fraser” — ‘Battlelines’ P55 (John Howard’s Influence) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“The US will remain the world’s strongest country” — ‘Battlelines’ P154 (Come 2020, I’m confident that) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“Explosion in the number of children growing up in fatherless or motherless households. Most children are pretty resilient…still only the most starry-eyed member of the Woodstock generation would maintain that a parent’s self-fulfilment readily justifies depriving children of living with both a mother and a father, especially when the children are young” — ‘Battlelines’ P177 (Importance of Family) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“These people aren’t so much seeking asylum, they’re seeking permanent residency. If they were happy with temporary protection visas, then they might be able to argue better that they were asylum seekers” — Tony Abbott, on immigration –  16 Quotes From Tony Abbott to Remind You Why He Shouldn’t Be Prime Minister

 

“In the lead up to the 2007 election, the Howard Government announced as a condition of access to new Commonwealth funding for local hospital infrastructure projects, that hospitals with more than 50 beds should have their own board.  The board would appoint the local CEO and together with the CEO, manage the hospital’s budget. Another condition was that  the hospital would itself keep any private income or donations…” — ‘Battlelines’ P138 (improving Hospitals) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“There are few problems in contemporary Australia that dysfunctional federation does not make worse” — ‘Battlelines’ P113 (State–Commonwealth Blame Game) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“Climate change…has been happening since the earth’s beginning…In Roman times grapes were widely grown in Britain. In medieval times, Greenland supported agriculture. During the mini-ice age, from 1500 to 1800’s people skated and ice fairs were held on the river Thames” — ‘Battlelines’ P170 (Environmentalism) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“Father, if you’d asked me for advice I would have said to have – adopt a sort of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy about [homosexuals in the Catholic church].” — Tony Abbott March 19th 2009 Q&A, Australian Broadcasting Corporation –  Abbottisms Website

 

“One Nation was a company owned by three directors rather than a political party democratically controlled by its members” — ‘Battlelines’ P50 (One Nation) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“We have to be very careful because if we break something, we own it” — Tony Abbott on 7:30 Report (02/09/2013) –  ABC 7:30 Report Interview Transcript (2/9/2013)

 

“Now, I know that there are some Aboriginal people who aren’t happy with Australia Day. For them it remains Invasion Day. I think a better view is the view of Noel Pearson, who has said that Aboriginal people have much to celebrate in this country’s British Heritage.” — Tony Abbott April 5th 2010 Q&A, Australian Broadcasting Corporation –  Abbottisms Website

 

“I’m not saying that people on welfare don’t contribute in their own way, but as many as possible should be encouraged to be economically active as well as socially and culturally active” — Tony Abbott –  Tony Abbott (Brainyquote 3/3)

 

“I have always been a very strong supporter of the coalition. I’ve always thought that a Liberal is a city-National, and National is a country-Liberal” — Tony Abbott (2009) –  Daily Telegraph (Quotes Since Becoming Opposition Leader – 1st December 2009)

 

“I don’t think my religious convictions should be held against me” — Tony Abbott –  Tony Abbott (Brainyquote 2/3)

 

“The health system does not need fundamental restructuring or gargantuan amounts of additional funding.  Hospital boards with clout are the change it needs because that change addresses the disconnect between patients and public hospital decision-makers which is the system’s biggest problem” — ‘Battlelines’ P142 (Health Reform) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“A successful society such as Australia is unlikely to be improved by radical change” — ‘Battlelines’ P152 (Australia’s Future Direction) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“Some progress will have been made towards ‘closing the gap’ between Aboriginal and other Australian’s standards of living” — ‘Battlelines’ P154 (Come 2020, I’m confident that) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“There may not be a great job for [Aboriginal people] but whatever there is, they just have to do it, and if it’s picking up rubbish around the community, it just has to be done.” — Tony Abbott June 30th 2010 The Age –  Abbottisms Website

 

“I am a Liberal because I believe that government’s role is to give people a hand up, not a handout. I believe in a limited government and unlimited opportunity.” — ‘Battlelines’ P19 (Conservativism) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“Both Mum and Dad were converts to Catholicism, and normally if you convert to Catholicism you have thought about it more than someone who just grew up with it, taking it for granted” — Tony Abbott –  Tony Abbott (Brainyquote 2/3)

 

“This is a government which is proposing to put at risk our manufacturing industry, to penalise struggling families, to make a tough situation worse for millions of households right around Australia. And for what? To make not a scrap of difference to the environment any time in the next 1000 years” — Tony Abbott (On Climate Change), 29 March 2011 –  Climate Misinformer: Tony Abbott

 

“I think I would say to my daughters if they were to ask me this question… it [their virginity] is the greatest gift that you can give someone, the ultimate gift of giving and don’t give it to someone lightly, that’s what I would say.” — Quoted in “The Monk might make sense”, The Age, (28 Jan 2010) –  Tony Abbott (WikiQuotes)

 

“As an ambitious politician, I had never had the slightest intension of becoming a morals campaigner. Shortly after becoming the health minister, though, I’d been asked to justify Medicare funding for up to 75,000 abortions every year. It was a question that compelled an answer. The first installment, delivered in March 2004 as a speech entitled “The Ethical Responsibilities of a Christian Politician” distinguished between deploring the frequency of abortion and trying to re-criminalize it. In a speech shortly after the 2004 election, I had even endorsed, at least as an improvement on the current situation, Bill Clinton’s observation that abortion should be ‘safe, legal and rare’” — ‘Battlelines’ P180 (Reducing Abortion rates) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“The Australian public are very fair and they are always prepared to give the leader of a major political party a fair go” — Tony Abbott –  Tony Abbott (Brainyquote 1/3)

 

“The problem with the Australian practice of abortion is that an objectively grave matter has been reduced to a question of the mother’s convenience” — Tony Abbott March 17th 2004 tonyabbott.com.au –  Abbottisms Website

 

“The means test ensures that people are penalised just as they start to achieve. …ends up subsidizing need and, perversely, risks producing more of it” — ‘Battlelines’ P94 (Middle Class Welfare) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“The argument for making public hospitals a Commonwealth responsibility is not based on the greater wisdom of Commonwealth public servants but on the Commonwealth’s confirmed predisposition to run health services in a different way” — ‘Battlelines’  (Aged Care funding) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“Chairthing” — 24 Tony Abbott quotes – 3. Chairthing –  Turn Left 2013 – 24 Tony Abbott Quotes

 

“Oppositions are not there to get legislation through. Oppositions are there to hold the government to account” — Tony Abbott –  Tony Abbott (Brainyquote 2/3)

 

“I am not setting myself up as the great expert here, but the Hadley Institute in Britain, which is apparently one of the most reputable of these measuring centres, according to press reports, has found that after heating up very significantly in the previous 25 years, there seems to have been a slight cooling, but at a high plateau I’ll accept that” — Tony Abbott (On Climate Change), 19 November 2009 –  Climate Misinformer: Tony Abbott

 

“I won’t be rushing out to get my daughters vaccinated, maybe that’s because I’m a cruel, callow, callous, heartless bastard but, look, I won’t be” — 24 Tony Abbott quotes – 4. I’m a cruel, callow, callous, heartless bastard –  Turn Left 2013 – 24 Tony Abbott Quotes

 

“The test he applied was: ‘How could this particular measure help make Australia a freer, stronger better nation?’” — ‘Battlelines’ P77 (Guiding Liberal Policies) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“Although a safer world is in everyone’s long term interest, there’s little immediate reward in being its policeman. The invasion of Iraq, for instance, certainly didn’t give America or its allies access to cheap oil…” — ‘Battlelines’ p158 (Foreign Affairs) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“When (Mr Turnbull) elected to join the parliamentary Liberal Party he did us great credit and great honour and I want him to have a long and successful future in public life” — Tony Abbott (2009) –  Daily Telegraph (Quotes Since Becoming Opposition Leader – 1st December 2009)

 

“Now if you are condemned to life on welfare, I’m not so sure that being in a bigger welfare village is that much better than being in a smaller welfare village” — Tony Abbott –  Tony Abbott (Brainyquote 3/3)

 

“A waste of money that has been worse than (former Labor prime minister Gough) Whitlam” — Tony Abbott (2009) –  Daily Telegraph (Quotes Since Becoming Opposition Leader – 1st December 2009)

 

“Undoubtedly, the most far-fetched arguments for the states is that they form a supposed bulwark against the potential tyranny of the national government.  It’s very hard to find any recent examples of bad Commonwealth policy that the states have stopped…” — ‘Battlelines’ P118 (State–Commonwealth Blame Game) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“The strongest and most resilient culture will turn out to be that which has emerged from the most vigorous interaction of ideas, attitudes and practices…These days, multiculturalism has largely ceased to be a battlefield in the ‘culture wars’” — ‘Battlelines’ P162 (Multiculturalism) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“In fact about 80 per cent of people who move onto full age pension do so from other benefits. Raising the pension would leave few conscripts in the work force but would make it much easier for older people who want to keep their jobs to do so” — ‘Battlelines’ P108 (Retirement Age) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“I am giving you the most definite commitment any politician can give that this tax will go. This is a pledge in blood this tax will go” — Tony Abbott 12 Oct 2011 –  Australian Times (K Rudd and T Abbott Quotes)

 

“I am, as you know, hugely unconvinced by the so-called settled science on climate change.” — Quoted in “ABC 7.30 Report”, July 22, 2002 –  Tony Abbott (WikiQuotes)

 

“Unlike Liberalism and socialism, conservatism does not start with an idea and construct a huge superstructure based on one insight or preference. … Conservatism starts with an appreciation of what is and what has been and tries to discern the good from patterns of conduct. Conservatism prefers facts to theory; practical demonstration to metaphysical abstraction, what works to what’s in the mind’s eye. To a conservative intuition is as important as reasoning; instinct as important as intellect…Conservatives are not optimists or pessimists but realists” — ‘Battlelines’ P72 (Conservativism) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“Another important reform would be generally subjecting welfare dependent families with children under sixteen to automatic income management…of course there are many families who spend their money responsibly… already spend 50 per cent of their welfare income on the necessities of life, so they would not be affected…[this] would send the clearest possible message that people on welfare have obligations as well as entitlements” — ‘Battlelines’ p91 (Welfare Reform) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“In contemporary Australia, there is a gulf between classic federalism and governmental practice and voter expectations.  Health, education and the environment are the clear constitutional responsibility of the states, but also the areas of government policy that voters typically nominate as most important.  This is why leaders such as Menzies (universities) and Fraser (environment) have increased the size and importance of the national government” — ‘Battlelines’ P118 (State–Commonwealth Blame Game) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“By contrast, a striking example of what can be achieved when one level of government is clearly in charge was the Howard Government’s intervention into remote NT townships.  This is was not only a potential watershed in Aboriginal policy but a good illustration of what national governments can do when not subjected to state-government vetos. In this case, the Commonwealth was able to mobilize NT government personnel and co-opt NT institutions because the Territory is a subordinate legislature subject ultimately the Commonwealth parliament” — ‘Battlelines’ P123 (State–Commonwealth Blame Game) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“Fixing the federation is a policy that a revitalised Liberal Party should adopt.  As long as eight out of ten Australians think that the Commonwealth should be able to resolve problems that the states can’t handle, a proposal to give the national government the authority to do so is the kind of pragmatism they should like” — ‘Battlelines’ P131 (COAG) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“I’d probably … I feel a bit threatened” — Tony Abbott, on homosexuality –  16 Quotes From Tony Abbott to Remind You Why He Shouldn’t Be Prime Minister

 

“After a month in on benefits, people should participate in job-search training, and after three months they should begin in regular Work for the Dole” — ‘Battlelines’ P90 (Welfare Reform) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“I know politicians are going to be judged on everything they say but sometimes in the heat of discussion you go a little bit further than you would if it was an absolutely calm, considered, prepared, scripted remark. The statements that need to be taken absolutely as gospel truth are those carefully prepared scripted remarks.” — Quoted in “Don’t believe everything I say – Tony Abbott” on news.com.au, (18 May 2010) –  Tony Abbott (WikiQuotes)

 

“I do feel humbled and daunted by what lies ahead but I also feel proud and exhilarated at the prospect of leading this party to the next election” — Tony Abbott (2009) –  Daily Telegraph (Quotes Since Becoming Opposition Leader – 1st December 2009)

 

“Mal Brough [Indigenous Affairs Minister] had offered to fund and organise similar measures in the remote townships of the Kimberley – which had Australia’s highest reported rates of sexual infection among minors – but was brushed off by the WA government” — ‘Battlelines’ P123 (State–Commonwealth Blame Game) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“…conservatives have not been infected with the spirit of improvement…Conservative feel no particular need to justify the status quo “ — ‘Battlelines’ P56 (Conservativism) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“ANU’s Professor John Wanna suggested that meetings of commonwealth and state chief ministers and ministers should operate like a cabinet.  This would require the states to accept Commonwealth leadership – which is precisely what they won’t do under current constitutional arrangements…” — ‘Battlelines’ P126 (COAG) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

““Work Choices Wasn’t All Bad” — ‘Battlelines’ p87 (Work Choices) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“[Australian] Families won’t break up any more often, because old fashioned notions about making the most of imperfect situations will have made something of a comeback” — ‘Battlelines’ P154 (Come 2020, I’m confident that) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“He was … a beacon of humanity at seminary” — 24 Tony Abbott quotes – 6. a priest accused of assualt of a child was “a beacon of humanity” –  Turn Left 2013 – 24 Tony Abbott Quotes

 

“The smart way to improve broadband is not to junk the existing network but to make the most of it. It’s to let a competitive market deliver the speeds that people need at an affordable price with government improving infrastructure in the areas where market competition won’t deliver it” — Tony Abbott –  Tony Abbott (Brainyquote 1/3)

 

“In Australia’s biggest cities, public transport is generally slow, expensive, not especially reliable and still hideous drain on the public purse. Part of the problem is inefficient, overmanned, union-dominated government run train and bus systems. Mostly though, …there just aren’t enough people wanting to go from a particular place to a particular destination at a particular time to justify any vehicle larger than a car, and cars need roads” — ‘Battlelines’ P174 (Improving Transport System) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“What the housewives of Australia need to understand as they do the ironing is that if they get it done commercially it’s going to go up in price.” — Tony Abbott, accused of being ‘incredibly old fashioned’ as he lets off steam, Sydney Morning Herald, 9 February 2010, said on 8 February 2010 –  Tony Abbott’s Quotes 2013

 

“Preserving the states in their current role theoretically makes it harder for misguided national governments to implement poor policy….In any event, states had nothing to do with thwarting either [Fraser’s retrospective tax and Hawke’s Australia card] policies. In reality, states have been unsuccessful at thwarting Commonwealth policies” — ‘Battlelines’ P126 (COAG) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“The public will come to appreciate British Prime Minister’s words “you can’t spend your way out of a recession. It might be possible, though, to reform your way through a recession, avoiding its worst ravages by setting up a burst of future prosperity…Even the Hawke Government used the recession of the early ‘80s to justify floating the dollar, deregulating the banks and lowering tariff” — ‘Battlelines’ P154 (Economic Reform) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“Environmentalism might hurt the environment” — ‘Battlelines’ P169 (Environmentalism) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“Ideally welfare would give households a minimum level of income. Beyond that, earned income would not be taxed up to a further level depending on household size. After that earned income would could be taxed but not at a rate likely to destroy incentive” — ‘Battlelines’ P105 –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“Unless educational conservatives such as Bob Carr can reassert their influence within the ALP, it is almost inevitable that this critique [for less phonics and literature] from the left will be accommodated” — ‘Battlelines’ P147 (Improving Schools) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“Government’s job is to try to equip Aboriginal people to participate in wider Australian society. Building more aboriginal housing in places where there are no jobs…traps them in welfare villages” — ‘Battlelines’ P167 (Indigenous Affairs) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“…Work Choices was a catastrophic political blunder” — ‘Battlelines’ P25 (Liberal loss in 2007) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“New roads would provide space for dedicated bus lanes… It should be a standard condition for new roads  that they make space for bikes …and new commercial buildings that they have lockers and showers for people who walk or ride to work” — ‘Battlelines’ P175 (Improving Transport System) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“Western civilisation came to this country in 1788 and I’m proud of that…” — Tony Abbott, on On Indigenous Australia –  16 Quotes From Tony Abbott to Remind You Why He Shouldn’t Be Prime Minister

 

“If half the effort were put into discouraging teenage promiscuity as goes into preventing teenage speeding, there might be fewer abortions, fewer traumatised young women and fewer dysfunctional families.” — Tony Abbott March 17th 2004 tonyabbott.com.au –  Abbottisms Website

 

“I accept that resolutions made in church often wilt under the hot breath of passion—I think I know that as well as any person in this chamber” — Tony Abbott February 15th 2006 (Hansard) –  Abbottisms Website

 

““In political shorthand, ‘socialist’ parties might stand for government control of the economy, ‘liberal’ parties for individual freedom and ‘conservative’ parties for traditional institutions” — ‘Battlelines’ P57 (Conservativism) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“Parties to the left are thought to be focused on better government services.  Because the Labor Party established Medicare and abolished university fees, they ‘own’ health and education….Advocates of smaller government can give the impression that they oppose government service delivery, even though they normally want services more effectively delivered.  The Liberal Party’s reluctance to trespass on the traditional responsibilities of the states can easily be mistaken for a reluctance to provide ‘national leadership’ on the issues that matter to voters” — ‘Battlelines’ P148-9 (Conservativism) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“I think that the best things that governments can do for productivity is not whack on new taxes and, if we can get institutions like schools and hospitals functioning better, well that’s obviously good for the overall productiveness of our society” — Tony Abbott –  Tony Abbott (Brainyquote 2/3)

 

“It seems that, notwithstanding the dramatic increases in manmade CO2 emissions over the last decade, the world’s warming has stopped.” — Quoted in “2009 Australia’s second warmest year ever, according to Bureau of Meteorology figures” in the Herald Sun, (5 January 2010) –  Tony Abbott (WikiQuotes)

 

“Australia has some heft in the world. We are probably the 12th largest economy, depending upon relative exchange rates.” — Tony Abbott on 7:30 Report (02/09/2013) –  ABC 7:30 Report Interview Transcript (2/9/2013)

 

“Its hard to imagine that security forces in the West will permanently be able to prevent nuclear terrorism in a large city…” — ‘Battlelines’ P160 (Islamist terrorism) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“My Mum and Dad were both very generous, encouraging parents.” — Tony Abbott –  Tony Abbott (Brainyquote 1/3)

 

“In the employment portfolio between 1998 and 2003, one of my main missions was to highlight the importance of improving incentives to work.. I pointed out the high effective marginal tax rate faced by people moving from welfare to work” — ‘Battlelines’ P92 (Taxation Reform) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“I would not want to see any relaxation of the law prohibiting human cloning” — Tony Abbott –  Tony Abbott (Brainyquote 1/3)

 

“I want to make it clear that I do not judge or condemn any woman who has had an abortion, but every abortion is a tragedy and up to 100,000 abortions a year is this generation’s legacy of unutterable shame.” — Abbott to parliament in 2005. [specific citation needed] –  Tony Abbott (WikiQuotes)

 

“If people are going to do things which have certain consequences that they would rather avoid, they should do whatever they need to avoid the consequences” — Tony Abbott –  Tony Abbott (Brainyquote 1/3)

 

“As the Commonwealth government progressively tackled issues that were its responsibility, voters increasingly expected it to address problems that were the responsibility of the states” — ‘Battlelines’ P25 (Liberal loss in 2007) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“An emissions trading scheme or carbon tax is a very artificial market, Leigh. What we’re going to do is use incentives, not penalties.” — Tony Abbott on 7:30 Report (02/09/2013) –  ABC 7:30 Report Interview Transcript (2/9/2013)

 

“I see myself as a social conservative, but I think that there are lots of social institutions that produce beneficial reforms, like public hospitals, for instance, and schools” — Tony Abbott –  Tony Abbott (Brainyquote 2/3)

 

“We had intervention in Iraq. I supported it, but a lot of people would question its wisdom and its outcomes. “ — Tony Abbott on 7:30 Report (02/09/2013) –  ABC 7:30 Report Interview Transcript (2/9/2013)

 

“Tony Abbott says “For me, the message was that God preferred big-hearted people who might sometimes make mistakes rather than robotic rule worshipers. In the hands of the Jesuits, to be Catholic meant to ‘have life and have it to the full’. They seemed to have worked out that fire and brimstone was more likely to cut off people from the church than to frighten them into better behaviour. Their message was that you can’t condone sin, but you can usually understand why it happens” — ‘Battlelines’ P10 (Religion) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“The Commonwealth has become increasingly responsible for all health services not provided to public patients in public hospitals.  Even the public hospital systems have come to be about half funded by the Commonwealth, in return for the states continuing to provide free treatment to public patients in public hospitals.  The Commonwealth has also funded the states’ population health services such as immunisation” — ‘Battlelines’ P135 (improving Hospitals) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“It is often thought of America in its dealing with the wider world, that its knowledge is scant, its attention span short, its judgment flawed and its actions frequently counter-productive. What can’t be questioned is Americans’ collective desire to be a force for good” — ‘Battlelines’ P159 (Foreign Affairs) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“Instead, at my instigation, the Howard government had introduced a new help line to give more support to women facing an unexpected pregnancy. It seemed to be the best way to nudge the abortion rate down without affecting women’s right to choose” — ‘Battlelines’ P181 (Reducing Abortion rates) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“In the end, the fundamental job of government is to run a good economy” — Tony Abbott (2009) –  Daily Telegraph (Quotes Since Becoming Opposition Leader – 1st December 2009)

 

“[Australia] … will have been bigger fires, extensive floods and more ferocious storms because records are always being broken” — ‘Battlelines’ P154 (Come 2020, I’m confident that) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“The climate change argument is absolute crap, however the politics are tough for us because 80 per cent of people believe climate change is a real and present danger.” — Tony Abbott February 2nd 2010 7.30 Report, Australian Broadcasting Corporation –  Abbottisms Website

 

“The global financial crisis will make the quest for lower, simpler taxes more urgent, not less.  There will be more toll roads, more congestion charges, more user pays services and more contributions in the future” — ‘Battlelines’ P155 (Economic Reform) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“The government went a little bit too far with some sections of this legislation, we accepted that even in government” — Tony Abbott (2009) –  Daily Telegraph (Quotes Since Becoming Opposition Leader – 1st December 2009)

 

“Another big problem with any Australian emissions reduction scheme is that it would not make a material difference to atmospheric carbon concentrations unless the big international polluters had similar schemes” — Tony Abbott (On Climate Change), 1 July 2009 –  Climate Misinformer: Tony Abbott

 

“I’m not running for canonisation.” — Tony Abbott –  Tony Abbott (Brainyquote 2/3)

 

“As a Journalist in the 1980, I had attacked multiculturalism for eroding Australia’s distinctive identity. In fact, along with other contemporary critics, I had made the mistake of underestimating the gravitational pull of the Australian way of life. I was too defensive about western values, which have turned out to have near-universal appeal” — ‘Battlelines’ P162 (Multiculturalism) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“Kevin Rudd said he would work with the states for 18 months, then proceed to take over public hospitals if their performance didn’t improve.  The commitment generated much support, even though it is highly unlikely ever to be carried out and now seems to have been abandoned” — ‘Battlelines’ P122 (State–Commonwealth Blame Game) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“It would be folly to expect that women would ever approach equal representation in a large number of areas simply because their aptitudes, their abilities and interests are different for physiological reasons.”” — Tony Abbott 1979 Four Corners –  Abbottisms Website

 

“Without a substantial measure of local autonomy and the consequent sense of local ‘ownership’, public hospitals are unlikely to regain the team spirit that they need to function at their best.  Because there will be no serious revival of morale among hospital staff without these changes, this should continue to be Liberal Party policy” — ‘Battlelines’ P138 (improving Hospitals) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“Let’s not forget what Kevin Rudd has done is not just roll back WorkChoices, Kevin Rudd has rolled back the industrial reforms of the Keating government” — Tony Abbott (2009) –  Daily Telegraph (Quotes Since Becoming Opposition Leader – 1st December 2009)

 

“Remove the Rudd Government’s Baby Bonus means test which saves only 3% of the total program spending but which has turned this payment from a recognition of the cost of motherhood into a welfare payment” — ‘Battlelines’ P104 (Middle Class Welfare) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“They underestimate the sense of mastery that many people gain from their car. The humblest person is a king in his own car….For people whose lives otherwise run largely at the beck and call of others, that’s no small freedom” — ‘Battlelines’ P174 (Improving Transport System) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“The poor will always be with us.” — Quoted in “Bible bashing the homeless, Abbott style “in response to whether a government under his direction would continue with the Rudd government’s goal of halving homelessness by 2020” in the Brisbane Times, (30 June 2010) –  Tony Abbott (WikiQuotes)

 

“I’m not saying that people on welfare don’t contribute in their own way, but as many as possible should be encouraged to be economically active as well as socially and culturally active.” — Tony Abbott –  Tony Abbott (Brainyquote 3/3)

 

“I try to treat people as people and not put them in pigeonholes” — Tony Abbott –  Tony Abbott (Brainyquote 2/3)

 

“as John Howard once quipped, ‘a conservative is someone who doesn’t think he is morally superior to his grandfather” — ‘Battlelines’ P21 (Conservativism) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“I instinctively try to protect people from filth.” — Tony Abbott –  Tony Abbott (Brainyquote 1/3)

 

“She certainly didn’t deserve to be jailed for what was a political rather than a criminal scam” — ‘Battlelines’ P51 (One Nation) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“More use should be made of systems for assessing degrees of impairment and then expecting more of a disability pensioner with a bad back, for instance, than one who’s a paraplegic” — ‘Battlelines’ P90 (Welfare Reform) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“Joe has had a pretty tough few days. I want to pay tribute to Joe who I think has really tried hard to play healer” — Tony Abbott (2009) –  Daily Telegraph (Quotes Since Becoming Opposition Leader – 1st December 2009)

 

“As the ABC’s Chris Uhlmann has instructively remarked, if we can’t predict the weather a week in advance and can’t accurately forecast next year’s budget deficit, how can we be so sure about climate and its economic consequences in 100 years time?” — Tony Abbott (On Climate Change), 27 July 2007 –  Climate Misinformer: Tony Abbott

 

“I am, as you know, hugely unconvinced by the so-called settled science on climate change. […] I mean, I just think that the science is highly contentious, to say the least” — Tony Abbott (On Climate Change), 27 July 2009 –  Climate Misinformer: Tony Abbott

 

“According to Howard at the time, policy should meet three criteria: does it strengthen the family, give individuals more incentive and hope, and give preference to private over government enterprise?” — ‘Battlelines’ P41 (Guiding Liberal Policies) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“The states have long provided free dental services to pensioners or other low-income people who choose to use them.  In 2007, there were said to be 650,000 people on public dental waiting lists around Australia.  Because dental treatment is hard to access or hard to afford, about a third of country people and more than a fifth of city people have ‘untreated decay’ according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare” — ‘Battlelines’ P143 (Better Dental Health) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“What political leaders ought to know is what to try to preserve, what to change and how change should be brought about.  Australia’s natural advantages and human accomplishments should make our future secure and bright” — ‘Battlelines’ P153 (Australia’s Future Direction) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“I am not being negative, I am simply being factual when I say Kevin Rudd is the best friend the people smugglers have ever had” — Tony Abbott 28 June 2013 –  Australian Times (K Rudd and T Abbott Quotes)

 

“Shit happens” — Tony Abbott, On the death of an Australian soldier –  16 Quotes From Tony Abbott to Remind You Why He Shouldn’t Be Prime Minister

 

“The fact that we have had if anything cooling global temperatures over the last decade, not withstanding continued dramatic increases of carbon dioxide emissions, suggests the role of CO2 is not nearly as clear as the climate catastrophists suggest” — Tony Abbott (On Climate Change), 29 July 2009 –  Climate Misinformer: Tony Abbott

 

“Sydney for instance, should fill the gas between the CBD and the M4 at Strathfield, the expressway at Hornsby and the M2, and the M5 and the expressway at Heatcote” — ‘Battlelines’ P175 (Improving Transport System) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“In a sense, the former government was a victim of its own success….voters inevitably took good times for granted. People with no memories of strikes weren’t scared of unions. People with no experience of unemployment didn’t see why further economic reform was necessary” — ‘Battlelines’ P25 (Liberal loss in 2007) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“Giving everyone over a certain age the pension (as was briefly the case for those over seventy-five under the Whitlam government) could ultimately mean a simpler and therefore a fairer system” — ‘Battlelines’ P109 (Retirement Age) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“If, as Australians seem to want, the national government is to resolve problems that the states can’t handle, the simplest way is for a constitutional amendment to provide that the Commonwealth parliament can make laws generally for the peace, order and good government of the country” — ‘Battlelines’  (State–Commonwealth Blame Game) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“If there is a pandemic, international travel will almost cease I suspect for a significant period of time” — Tony Abbott –  Tony Abbott (ThinkExist)

 

“Climate change is crap” — Tony Abbott –  Tony Abbott (Brainyquote 1/3)

 

“…conservative side of politics normally has to overcome the popular impression that the Labor Party believes in fairness while the Liberal Party just believes in good economic management. In my experience, the Liberals are hardly less passionate about fairness than members of the Labor Party.  The key difference is Liberals’ instinctive sense that a wealthier society is more likely to be fair than a poorer one.” .. Wealth creation means that there can be for everyone rather than an ugly fight to take away what some people already have” — ‘Battlelines’ P81 (Fairness) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“The Australian people need to understand that each and every interest rate rise over the next 12 months is due to the irresponsible spending spree of the Rudd government” — Tony Abbott (2009) –  Daily Telegraph (Quotes Since Becoming Opposition Leader – 1st December 2009)

 

“Even if they are adding to climatic extremes, humanity may be able to cope with only modest adjustments” — Tony Abbott (On Climate Change), 27 July 2007 –  Climate Misinformer: Tony Abbott

 

“Every day the Prime Minister stands in this parliament to defend this Speaker will be another day of shame for this parliament and another day of shame for a government which should have already died of shame.” — Tony Abbott October 9th 2012 Australian Parliament: Hansard –  Abbottisms Website

 

“I’m a politician. I’m not going to get into a whole range of scientific argument with scientists” — Tony Abbott –  Tony Abbott (Brainyquote 1/3)

 

“There may even have been a slight decrease in global temperatures (the measurement data differs on this point) over the past decade despite continued large increases in emissions associated with the rapid economic growth of China and India.” — Tony Abbott (On Climate Change), 27 July 2007 –  Climate Misinformer: Tony Abbott

 

“What I would like to see is sufficiently good education and health services being delivered to Aboriginal people so that they are prepared and ready to leave and join the economic mainstream if that’s their choice.” — Tony Abbott –  Tony Abbott (Brainyquote 1/3)

 

“The problem with health ‘reform’ proposals is that they usually propose to fix one problem by tacking another. Because public hospital problems are allegedly caused by inadequate services outside hospitals, health ‘reform’ ends up proposing to tinker with private medical practice rather than deal with over-stressed hospitals. … By contrast, the re-establishment of hospital …means local that local doctors and nurses may have reasonable access to to someone who might actually be able to address their problem” — ‘Battlelines’ P141 (Health Reform) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“Most of the people who are coming to Australia by boat have passed through several countries on the way, and if they simply wanted asylum they could have claimed that in any of the countries through which they’d passed” — Tony Abbott –  Tony Abbott (Brainyquote 1/3)

 

“We can’t conclusively say whether man-made carbon dioxide emissions are contributing to climate change” — Tony Abbott (On Climate Change), 27 July 2007 –  Climate Misinformer: Tony Abbott

 

“Obviously we have now had a number of very credible leads and there is increasing hope – no more than hope, no more than hope – that we might be on the road to discovering what did happen to this ill-fated aircraft.” — About Malaysia Airlines MH370, quoted on BBC News, “Malaysia flight MH370: New data ‘shows possible debris'”, March 23, 2014. –  Tony Abbott (WikiQuotes)

 

“I cannot promise victory, it will obviously be very tough, but I can promise a contest. It will be a good contest, it will be a clean contest. I know my colleagues are gearing up for the fight of their lives” — Tony Abbott (2009) –  Daily Telegraph (Quotes Since Becoming Opposition Leader – 1st December 2009)

 

“Whether carbon dioxide is quite the environmental villain that some people make it out to be is not yet proven.” — Tony Abbott (On Climate Change), 15 March 2011 –  Climate Misinformer: Tony Abbott

 

“I really meant it when I said in recent days that my admiration for Malcolm has grown. He has shone in adversity” — Tony Abbott (2009) –  Daily Telegraph (Quotes Since Becoming Opposition Leader – 1st December 2009)

 

“The attitude so brilliantly satirised in Michael Costa’s refrain ‘ I’m fat, ugly and stupid. What’s the government going to do about it?’ should become less prevalent” — ‘Battlelines’ P156 (Economic Reform) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“These days, people typically marry their or fourth love at about age thirty and live to about eighty. It’s not realistic to expect most young adults in this hyper-sexualised age to live chastely for many years outside marriage” — ‘Battlelines’ P176 (Importance of Family) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

 

“What the housewives of Australia need to understand as they do the ironing is that if they get it done commercially it’s going to go up in price and their own power bills when they switch the iron on are going to go up.” — Quoted in the Sydney Morning Herald, “Abbott accused of being ‘incredibly old-fashioned’ as he lets off steam”, February 9, 2010. –  Tony Abbott (WikiQuotes)

 

“The best way of ensuring that you don’t get infected with something like this, in the absence of an effective vaccine, would be isolation” — Tony Abbott –  Tony Abbott (ThinkExist)

 

“One way to pay for universal benefits for dependent children might be to further and more quickly raise the age of pension eligibility. ..eligibility for the old age pension at sixty-five was introduced in the early 1900’s when life expectancy at birth was under sixty. Today life expectancy at birth is over eighty” — ‘Battlelines’ P106 (Retirement Age) –  Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’

References

 

Src Id	Source
1	Tony Abbott (WikiQuotes)
2	Tony Abbott (Brainyquote 1/3)
3	Tony Abbott (Brainyquote 2/3)
4	Tony Abbott (Brainyquote 3/3)
5	Abbottisms Website
6	Tony Abbott (ThinkExist)
7	Daily Telegraph (Quotes Since Becoming Opposition Leader – 1st December 2009)
8	Highlights from Tony Abbott’s book ‘Battlelines’
9	Australian Times (K Rudd and T Abbott Quotes)
10	Turn Left 2013 – 24 Tony Abbott Quotes
11	Tony Abbott’s Quotes 2013
12	Tony Abbott Quotes
13	Tony Abbott Quotes
14	16 Quotes From Tony Abbott to Remind You Why He Shouldn’t Be Prime Minister
15	Climate Misinformer: Tony Abbott
16	ABC 7:30 Report Interview Transcript (2/9/2013)
17	Tony Abbott on Insiders (31/8/13)